Death and Darkness
by heyshalina
Summary: Killing is nothing until you are killed yourself. Making one face death is easier than facing it yourself. Hating is easy. Loving is difficult. He never took the challenge, and for that he was punished.Written for the Starvation Forum's Monthly Challenge.


**This is a one-shot written for the Starvation Forum's Monthly One-shot challenge. This month's prompt was Envy. Although this is not my favorite, I like this piece, and I hope you do too. Reviews are welcomed! Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Hunger Games nor any characters mentioned in the following one-shot. **

* * *

He stuck his short blade, already laden with blood from those he used to call his friends, into his victim's stomach. The blade penetrated the abdomen, killing the older man almost instantly as the hilt scraped flesh.

Eleven. Kills back in District Two were something to be proud of, and the only time someone got so many kills was when they were either deranged or a murderer that had been born and not made. The man was proud of himself. He had been the lucky victor to come into the arena one more time. Whether he had come for glory or for death, the man was there. He was bred to kill, and kill he had. Eleven kills? All in all the man was a monster.

But he was okay with that.

The man whipped around and saw the boy standing there with his mouth agape and no weapon at his side. The boy rasped the corpse's name, but the man was already on him. It was the day the boy would die, at the hands of the man who had already murdered enough people to make the Devil flinch. Just like every single other tribute left. The man had no problem with it. The boy was too young to live after all of the horrors he had experienced. Six was a young age, too young to die. Seventeen? The man didn't think so. He had no problem killing the boy. After all, he had caused all of this turmoil.

The man liked to think he led a good life. He liked to believe that he was less damaged by his bloody Games than any other Victor in Panem. He told himself that he was better than the boy, that he was not attached to anyone and that alone made him more superior. The man wanted to imagine that more people loved him and had more to live for than the boy who the man was going to kill.

But he was wrong about that.

The boy tripped up on his fake leg, and the man roared murderously. The short blade came down, but the boy rolled away. How was it that the man could kill an experienced murderer and yet it was a struggle to kill this one love-struck boy? The boy kicked the blade out of the man's grip, but the man grabbed the boy's shoulders. He could do what his District Partner had done, all those years ago. He could rip the boy's throat out. The boy howled and kicked, and the man set his jaw. This boy did not deserve to live, after everything he had done to the man. He had brought the man back here, to the place he had forgotten he dreaded. He had taken away the glory and wonder of being a Victor. There was no victory in being dead. The boy had someone to love, someone to care about whom he would give his life for at such a young age that he did not yet understand, and the man had no one as such. The boy had more than the man had ever wanted, even on the brink of death. And for that he had to die. The man was soulless, heartless, and a cold-blooded killer. The boy was no match against him. His heart was filled with love, not hate, and because of that he would die, not the man. Love was weak, the man thought.

But he never understood that.

The man held the boy down on the ground by his shoulders. The boy cried for his lover, and for a minute the man's face was like a slate, hatred filling his mind. The boy wanted to live for the reason the man wanted to die. The boy had someone, while the man had nothing, no one. The man tightened his grip on the object that would kill him, ready to strike. A Victor was jealous of no one, wanted nothing but to live the life he had to lead. His eleventh kill was from District Eleven. Now he would kill his twelfth victim today, from District Twelve.

Then the man dropped the blade.

"Brutus!"

The man turned his head to face the woman staring at him. Killing the boy was not his job. Killing the boy was not the priority, the girl was. The girl the weak boy loved. He didn't have to kill him.

He didn't care.

"Enobaria." the man growled, annoyed and head pounding with bloodlust. He turned back to the boy, turned back to kill him. Instead he turned back to a blade through his chest. The boy kicked the man off of him and ran, wiping the blood off of his face. The man's blood.

The man fell to the ground, clawing at the blood pouring from his chest, clawing at the pain. He was falling hard and fast toward death, but he knew she came to him, sitting beside him as he fell. Plunging into the death, falling into the darkness. The woman did not touch the man, but just stared at him as he tried desperately to claw out of the abyss in which he was plummeting. He had never cared much for the woman, but that was only because he never got to know her, and never cared about anyone. That was why he was dying. He thought that loving was a weakness, something that would get you killed. Something useless and petty compared to fear and power.

But he never knew anything about that.

The woman just stared at the man with a frown on her face as he died, which in reality was a few seconds. For the man it seemed like hours, hours of pain because the boy had missed his heart. It had nothing in it, anyway. The man would have sooner given up something that symbolized his nonexistent feelings than his blood. Blood was power. There was so much blood. So much power draining from the man's limbs.

The man's cannon fired, and the woman rose and turned away into the forest without a word, without a tear. The man had never loved. The man had never cared like the boy had. The boy's love had saved him, and killed the man with power flowing through his veins.

And he hated the boy for that.

He loathed him for that.

He envied him for that.

A Victor was never jealous of anyone. But Brutus was no Victor.


End file.
